Short Story

THE MIRACLE

by

Audrey Johnson
 

Every Thursday at twelve forty-five, Inge Reynolds boarded the #61 bus to Riverbridge Mall, where she had a standing one o'clock appointment to have her nails done at Stella's Nail Nook. Inge had been going to the Nail Nook for three years, ever since Stella started placing a "$2 Off for Seniors" coupon on the back page of Arbor View Villas' weekly Condo News.

This Thursday, everyone and everything at Stella's was running late, so Inge wandered down to "Scoopy Doo's" for a double dip of Strawberry Swirl. She sat on the outdoor patio, her five-foot-eight frame loosely splayed on one of Scoopy's white plastic chairs. She licked her cone and waited patiently; Thursday was not one of her "busy" days. Grocery shopping was saved for Publix on Fridays, when fish was delivered fresh for the weekend. .

Scanning the deepening blue sky over the parking lot, Inge observed the towering cumulus clouds begin to clump. The air was thick and sticky, typical for a Florida summer. The little finger on her right hand ached. She didn't need a weather report to tell her a storm was approaching.

A beat-up black Chevy pick-up, packed high with a jumble of tool chests, ladders, buckets and paints, swung into the lot and clattered to a stop with noisy thunks and clunks. Cassie, the young woman that Inge had her appointment with, hopped out juggling an umbrella, a plastic raincoat, her work apron, an open yogurt and a handbag. She raced around to kiss the expectant lips of the pony-tailed man at the driver's side window and then ran towards the mall. Even in a hurry, the serene smile of a woman in love was tucked neatly into the corners of Cassie's mouth. .

"You're late," Inge yelled to her. Inge liked Cassie. .

"You're right," Cassie called back, as she altered her course and plopped herself down across from Inge. She threw everything but the yogurt on the seat beside her and grinned unrepentantly. .

"I am very late. Mike came home for lunch and we had a fight. I wouldn't leave till we worked it out." Cassie pulled a plastic soup spoon from her purse and began to attack her strawberry yogurt. "It was a stupid fight, really. We were arguing over whether to get married now or in the winter.".

"Who won?"

"Mike did. I thought we should wait till we were more financially stable but he said that business was good this summer, and it could only get better. Winter's his busy season, you know. When the Snowbirds come back, they all want work done on their places. Mike's a good painter, plus he does handyman stuff: he gets lots of recommendations. But you want to know what the other reason was?" Cassie asked. "I'm not boring you, am I?"

Inge said "No," with her mouth half full of sugar cone and ice cream.

"Mike didn't want to have his attention divided between work and me and the wedding, which would happen if we waited till winter. He said getting married was serious business and he wanted to be there for me, for us. Isn't he something? So, we're getting married next month, in September, before the season starts." Cassie beamed. "Best argument I ever lost." She pointed at Inge's cone and held up her empty yogurt container. "Hey, Mrs. Reynolds, you like strawberry, too. It's my favorite flavor in everything."

"Mine, too," Inge replied. Her face wrinkled up in a smile.

Cassie had only been at Stella's for a few months, but she was Inge's favorite. It wasn't that she was a better nail technician than the others, it was more her contagious enthusiasm for life. Never bored or blasé, everything seemed to interest her and she never minded that Inge, who was on a fixed budget, only tipped her a dollar. She'd say "Thank you" with the same exhuberance as if she'd been handed a five.

"I'm going to tell her my story," Inge decided. A miracle, she believed, always had the potential of more miracles around it. The proper recipient was the key element and Inge was sure she had found her. It would be her wedding gift to Cassie, Inge thought. Something to carry with her, to keep her wonder fresh. A secret. A miracle.

Inside the Nail Nook, sitting across from Cassie, Inge regarded the fingers of her left hand, the hand that wasn't soaking. She had long, thin, strong fingers. The fingers of an artist, she thought, and said so.

"Were you?" Cassie asked. "Were you an artist before . . .?" She broke off awkwardly because there was no nice way to say "before you got old."

Inge knew that wasn't how Cassie meant it and ignored the gaffe. "I was, dear. A graphic artist. I did advertising illustrations for the local newspaper. I made good money at it, too, times being what they were. In those days, there weren't so many photographs or prepared ads in smaller newspapers. If a store wanted to advertise, why I'd go over and make sketches of what they sold and reproduce it for the papers, or I'd create the illustrations by myself - like pots and pans to advertise a kitchen store, or a stack of sheets and towels and pillows for a linens sale."

"Is that what happened to your finger?" Cassie approached the question cautiously. "Did you hurt it at work?"

Inge lifted her right hand out of the soapy solution and waggled her pinky. Cassie, at twenty, fresh out of Beauty College, had not yet worked on a multitude of hands and obviously had never been around anyone with rheumatoid arthritis. If she had, the telltale twist of Inge's littlest finger would have screamed out the origins of the deformity.

Inge surveyed the Nook from the corner station where she and Cassie sat. The other tables were occupied with chatting clients and technicians; no one was waiting for an appointment. She leaned forward in her chair and whispered to Cassie, "Work slow and I'll tell you a story."

Cassie looked around for Stella, who was involved in the premier stages of affixing a set of artificial nails: a long process. Cassie's eyes brightened. "Tell me," she said, reaching for her tools.

"When I was about your age," Inge began. "I lived in California, in Escondido. My parents had a small farm just outside of town. I was their only child. They loved me very much. My mother was a wonderful cook and a thrifty housewife. My father was a sober man who worked hard and saved his money. But there was never enough money in those days and so, after high school, I went to work for my father's friend Bill Jensen, who went to our church - there was a big Lutheran community in Escondido. Anyway, Mr. Jensen had an insurance agency and I was his secretary. I answered phones, scheduled appointments, and typed up all the forms. It was rather disappointing, because all I'd ever wanted to do was draw and paint. I was talented - all my teachers had said so, but there was no way I could afford more training. The money I earned at work went to my parents."

Cassie stopped filing the nails on Inge's left hand. "Gee, that must have been tough," she said. "All that work and you got nothing."

Inge shrugged. "I was helping out my family. I painted at home, on weekends. Father had cleaned out a space in the attic for me where I kept my paints and easel and he framed in a window so there was enough light." Inge frowned. "Then, one day my hands began to ache. Things that used to be easy became painful--washing dishes, laundry, brushing my hair, typing - it even hurt to hold a paintbrush. The doctor diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis and said there was no cure; he said it would only get worse. And it did. Within a year, my fingers started to twist in on themselves. I needed two hands to pick up the phone and it was so painful to watch me type that Mr. Jensen finally had to let me go, he couldn't bear it. He cried when he handed me my last paycheck, and said how sorry he was."

Cassie was incensed. "He fired you? How mean."

"No, he had no choice. He needed more help than I could give him. He put a hundred dollars extra on that check, though he wasn't bound to. He felt bad for me and my family."

"Did you ever try other doctors? Like to get a--what-d'ya-call-it--second opinion?"

"I did. But there wasn't much they could do back then. Treatments were painful and expensive. And with some drugs, the side effects were serious." A chuckle erupted. "Or stinky."

Cassie raised an eyebrow.

"One of my doctors researched alternative treatments for arthritis and prescribed cod liver oil. I took it in huge doses. It smelled awful. I smelled awful--fishy and oily: my hair and skin and clothes. I burped fishy burps and my breath smelled like a cannery. I finally had to stop taking it. Nobody would sit by me in church and I didn't blame them--I couldn't stand to be around myself."

"But it worked, right? It cured you." Cassie looked at the perfect hand that she held in hers.

"Well, it eased the pain a bit, but it couldn't cure the arthritis, or even slow the progress of the disease. Nothing could. Still, whenever I heard of a doctor with a new treatment, I'd go--with my parent's blessings and whatever money they could afford to give me."

"But your hands--they're completely straight, except for that pinky. You must have found a cure."

Inge lifted her head, listening. The radio was on loud enough that she had to strain to hear the conversations of the other women in the shop, their words were indistinct murmurs. Confident that she would not be overheard, Inge took in a deep breath and let it out.

"I heard about a new treatment involving injections of gold into the muscles. I know. I know. It sounds like quackery, but it was scientifically sound. The side effects were supposedly minimal, rashes and mouth ulcers. I had to give it a try. It was really my last hope. The doctor who developed the process practiced in Encinitas, not too far from where I lived, so I made an appointment. He gave me the injections and told me to come back in a week for evaluation. When I returned, he took one look at my swollen hands and told me he couldn't recommend further treatments. I was crushed. There was no hope left for me. I had no future."

Cassie interrupted. She had finished filing both hands and needed to know about color. "What'll it be this week? Light pink?"

"Let's go darker. What about that mauve polish."

Cassie agreed. "Yeah. Very hip. So what did you do? If that guy didn't cure you, who did?"

"The next bus back to Escondido wasn't until late afternoon, so I stopped at a diner downtown to get something to eat. I sat in a booth and ordered lunch. My hands hurt so much I had a hard time cutting my food. I was so frustrated I started to cry. The waitress came over and sat down across from me, took my plate, and started cutting up my food.

"'Now then, doll,' she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. 'Rudy's food is bad, but not bad enough to cry over.'

"There were maybe six other people having lunch, and they all laughed and looked at me. One of them, a gray-haired man in grimy coveralls, came over. The embroidered patch over his chest pocket spelled out 'Martini's Plumbing.'

"'Del, tell her about the Swami,' he said to the waitress.

"'I was getting there, Tony,' she answered.

"The man, Tony, stood there while I ate and Del - Adele - told me about the Swami."

Cassie had stopped painting Inge's nails and was listening with full attention. Inge asked, "Do you know what a Swami is? I didn't. They had to tell me. He's like a monk, a holy man, but from India."

"Well, anyway, there was a Swami who lived in Encinitas. The whole town 'thought the world of him,' was how Del put it. Tony got impatient with Del's tiptoeing and came right out and said it,'He can heal people.' And how come Tony was such an authority on the subject was that his infant grandson had been diagnosed with meningitis and wasn't responding to treatment. The doctors said he would not live out the week. Tony and his son and daughter-in-law decided to take the child to the Swami, to ask for his help. Tony said that the Swami took that feverish baby in his arms, touched his index finger to the child's forehead, and made him healthy. Wouldn't take any money for it, either. And Tony wasn't the only one who had experienced the holy man's healing powers, that's why the people in the diner wanted me to go and see him. Everybody in Encinitas believed he was something special. One of the women said she would walk me up to his place after lunch. Even if I was skeptical, I guessed I had nothing to lose."

Cassie and Inge looked up, startled, as the front register ka-chinged and the door opened to the sound of thunder. It slammed shut, bisecting the distinctive acetone trail of two departing clients. Two aproned technicians, pocketing tips, followed--fumbling with a shared pack of Virginia Slims. They lit up, dragged deeply, and were already exhaling as the door clicked closed for the second time.

"Cigarette break." Cassie confirmed the obvious. "I'm so glad I never started. Anyway, go on Mrs. Reynolds. I have a feeling we're getting to the good part." Cassie bent her head and went back to Inge's nails.

Inge envisioned a cloudless spring day. "The Swami lived in an elegantly simple house that one of his followers had built for him. Surrounding it was a beautiful garden that was open to the public. Tropical ferns and Kover bananas from India grew alongside ice plants, rock rose and Torrey Pines. A field of California poppies bloomed alongside the path that led to a spectacular ocean view on a bluff overlooking the Pacific.

"Everything spoke hope to me, but it seemed that I was to be disappointed once again. When the woman knocked at the door of the house, they said the Swami was out and didn't know when he would return. The woman who brought me wished me luck, gave me a hug and left me there.

"I sat down on a wooden bench under a tall palm tree, put my head in my hands and wept. There was no one else in the garden to hear me. After a while, I stopped crying and asked God to help me. I prayed that even if I never got better, I would somehow be able to make my own way and not be a burden on my parents. I prayed that I would never feel bitter about my handicap--that if God thought this was how I should be, to let me bear it in sweet disposition. And then I got up to go.

"I almost didn't see him at first because his robes were the same color as the poppies, but then the wind picked up and blew his long black hair across the orange panorama. For a moment I thought he was a tiger. It was the Swami. He walked right up to me and took my twisted hands in his own. He shook them up and down like a pair of dice he was about to throw, smiling at me the whole time. His eyes twinkled."

"He said, 'I think that God liked your prayer.'" Inge imitated the Swami's accent, saying it, "'Aye theenk that Gaud liked youer praier.'"

Cassie laughed and placed Inge's left hand under the heat lamp to dry. She picked up Inge's right hand and began to apply polish.

"And were your fingers straight when he let your hands go?" Cassie asked.

"No." Inge paused, as if trying to remember accurately. "Though they stopped hurting right away. It was two weeks before they ungnarled. It happened so gradually that no one noticed. One day they were just better. It was soon after that, that I met the editor of the Coast Herald. He was from La Jolla. He'd come to visit his sister who lived in Escondido and she brought him to a church potluck. I would have to say it was providence. She introduced him to me and told him I was quite the artist. He said that he was looking for an illustrator for the paper and could I do that? I worked for Matthew Reynolds for four years and then I married him." Inge laughed, merrily. "Thirty-five years later we both retired and moved here, to Arbor View Villas.

"So how come the Swami cured you except for your pinky."

"That is a smart question and you are a smart girl," Inge's smile was approving. "Because to me, the last part of the story is possibly a greater miracle."

"Every year, no matter what I was busy at, I would go back to the Swami's place on the anniversary of my healing. The Swami died--or as the Hindu's say--'left his body' nine months after I met him, in 1952, but his followers kept up his house and the gardens and had their own church in town. The year before we moved here to Florida I went to the gardens, not knowing whether it would be for the last time in my life. I sat on one of the benches looking out over the ocean, looking at my healthy hands, thinking about my life and why such a miracle should have come to me. I was so thankful. I thought about the Swami, and the spiritual grace he had achieved that enabled him to perform such great works. There were other people around but I didn't pay much attention to them except, at the end of the day when I was about to leave, a man rushed by, obviously distraught. He collapsed on a bench close by me and began to cry and plead out loud in Spanish, 'Senor, por favor. Mi hijo, por favor.' After a while he switched to English, as if he wasn't sure in which language he would be best understood. 'Don' let him die. Help him. Oh please, not my good boy.' And then began sobbing again."

Cassie's eyes were sympathetic. "His son was dying, and he was asking the Swami for help?"

Inge nodded. "I went over to him--I speak Spanish--and asked him what was wrong. His young son had caught a cold that developed into pneumonia. The doctor told him that the child was malnourished and too weak to fight off the infection. The man was working as a gardener in Encinitas. He and his wife had just come from Mexico. They had little money. Someone had told him about the healing place. Even though the Swami was gone, local gossip held that his power remained. The man was desperate to try anything that would help his child."

Inge raised her left hand with its shiny, mauve polished nails, and grabbed Cassie's right hand. Cassie had to pause, her brush wet with the final application of polish, the most difficult one--Inge's twisted pinky.

"How could I bear to keep the miracle for myself when this poor man was suffering and his child was dying?"

"But what could you do, Mrs. Reynolds?" Cassie's voice was tinged with suspicion. "You didn't get sudden healing powers, did you?"

Inge took her hand away from Cassie's and fitted a loose strand of her yellow-white hair back into place. "Dear child, I did not," she replied calmly, reassuringly, as Cassie began applying paint to her last finger. " What happened next was truly to be wondered at, but I was the smallest part of it.

Cassie sat up straight, and doubt left her face. "Lay it on me, Mrs. R. What happened?"

"I held my hands up to the sky. Silently and deeply I prayed for the Swami to take his gift from me and give it to the dying child. Once he had given me life and hope; I wished to pass it on to the boy who was just starting his life. I didn't know if it was possible, but if it was, I vowed never to make a peep about the pain that I knew would come back to me--and only someone who has lived with that agony could know what I was willing to relinquish. I didn't care. The pain of this father was more unbearable. Tears ran down my face. For half an hour I kept my hands raised. I didn't dare take them down until I was sure my prayer had been heeded. I didn't hear a voice, but the wind changed and it blew over us with a heavenly fragrance, the like of which I have never again smelled on this earth. It blew softly through my fingers. I took the hands of the man sitting next to me, and entwined my fingers through his. My heart was suffused with compassion and love; I didn't know whose heart I was feeling--mine, his or the Swami's.

"The young father closed his eyes and then opened them. In Spanish, he told me that he needed to go home. He held up his hands as if he sensed in them a power, a presence. He said he felt the need to touch his son; that when he touched him he knew the child would recover. He walked a few feet away and whispered his thanks over the ocean. He crossed himself and then looked over at me. His eyes said everything. Then he turned and ran for home.

"I sat, my head down, waiting for the blow that was to come. I wasn't afraid, but I needed to be ready for the change. I had sworn not to cry out. My hands were laid flat on my lap. Without warning, with no pain, I watched amazed as the top joint of that one little finger twisted to the left, like a flower turning towards the sun. I felt a rush of wind surround me and then it disappeared and everything was still."

Cassie sat back. "Wow," she said, shaking her head. "Wow." She thought for a minute, straightening the polish and files and scissors on her table. "And what happened to the child? Did he live? He did, didn't he?" Cassie was half anxious, half sure.

Inge smiled. "Well now, that's the real miracle, isn't it, Cassie? Whenever you have an impossibly hard day or your world seems topsy-turvy and you'll never figure things out, ask yourself that very question. See what you choose to believe. Me? I have to believe he did. In my world there lives a man who can cure the incurable. Is it any more improbable to believe that our good intentions count for something? That every time you wish good for yourself or someone else, that prayer is heard and answered? Think about it, dear, because the answer comes down to a way of life--and life can last a very long time."

Inge reached her manicured fingers into her purse and pulled out a neatly rolled bundle containing nine dollars and a "$2 Off" coupon.

Cassie put her left hand over Inge's and pushed the money back in. "Today is on me," she said. "Thank you for the story."

Inge walked to the door, waved goodbye, and stepped outside. A momentary cool breeze came out of nowhere, blowing before it a lovely floral fragrance.

"The smell of miracles," she thought with satisfaction.

At the bus stop, in front of the Espresso-to-Go-Go, a young woman and her son sat down on the bench next to Inge. The boy told Inge his name. "I'm Gary," he said, and held up six fingers to show his age. "How old are you?"

Inge held up all ten fingers and smiled. Gary pointed to her twisted pinky. "Did you fall down and get hurt?" he asked, concerned.

Inge hesitated for just a moment and then answered, "Yes."

They both examined her finger like curious scientists.

"It happened a long time ago," she began. "In Africa." She lowered her voice to an excited whisper. "On a tiger hunt."

From Inge's imagination, a thousand flamingos took to the air from the alkaline waters of Lake Nakamuru. Their feathers drifted down like pink confetti. A growling tiger emerged from the brush, its face a snarl of sharp yellow fangs and stiff white whiskers. She ran and fell through a cleverly camouflaged arrangement of brush laid over a deep pit. Her face was scratched, her hand throbbed; her pinky was bent sideways - she was sure it was broken. The tiger's massive head obscured the last streaks of orange-raspberry sunset as it crouched, looking down at her from the edge - the crumbling edge - of the moist earthen pit where she lay hurt, numb, the wind knocked out of her. She could smell fresh kill on its breath. Oh, why hadn't she told anyone at the camp where she was headed? She had only said: I'll be back soon. The tiger extended his paw, searching the air above her head. Inge began to pray. It would be a miracle if she got out of this alive.

The #61 South pulled up to the curb and gave two short beeps. Inge checked her watch. It would be an hour before it returned. She looked down at Gary who leaned against her knees, looking up at her attentively. She compared his wide blue eyes with the flat glass stare of the television in her empty apartment and signaled the bus driver to go on without her. There was no need to rush home. Besides, she had another miracle to account for.

####

Audrey Johnson has been published in: Creative States Quarterly, Zap Comix, Zoetrope All Story Extra, Cenotaph #6, #7, and Cenotaph Pocket Edition.

She wrote a column for the Lamoille County Weekly while living in Vermont, and stories and tests for Scribner Macmillan Learning Series, in California.

She's worked in local television, owned a cafe, and knows how to texture walls, but no matter how much she is empowered, she finds that she is still lousy at math.

She currently maintains a P.O. Box on the Central Coast of California and writes short stories.

You can reach Audrey at heyaudrey@mac.com